Usually, I’m pretty poor when it comes to interpreting art since being a programmer makes me a bit of a literalist. However, the themes in this episode were hammered over our heads so stongly that even I couldn’t miss them. In a word, the episode was about faith. From the title, to the church settings, to Jack’s leap of faith into the water, to Ben’s telling the story of Doubting Thomas, to John Locke guilt tripping Jack from beyond the grave, to final acceptance and belief from Jack.

We start with our fab 4 (Des, Sun, Jack Ben) in the church and lo and behold, Daniels mother is Mrs Hawking who ushers them through the basements to a new Dharma post called the Lampost. Again, the writers getting rather obvious with us with the Narnia references. Of interest is the US military B&W photo that was taken nearly fifty years to the date of the 815 crash. Given the circumstances of the 815 crash, this is possibly coincidence unless you believe in the destiny factor.

One question is why Dharma was looking for the island in the first place? Obviously this goes back way beyond 1970s Dharma, all the way back to Elvar Hanso and the Black Rock.

Des brought up the subject of Mrs Hawking being responsible for him wasting 4 years of his life which was interesting. Why would he blame her? He seemingly didn’t meet her until Flashes Before Your Eyes when he turned the fail safe key. At that point, he was already on the Island. If he had gone to buy to the ring and some crazy irish woman behind the counter started talking about how important being on the island was, he wouldn’t know what she was talking about, never mind taking it as encouragement to go to the Island. Therefore, how can he blame her for ending up on the Island?

Jack’s faith has never come easy, and in this episode he transforms from skeptic to believer. The fact that he is in the room at all means he has some small inkling of faith, either that, or he is just there because of what John said would happen to the others left on the Island. Either way, he is there, and sarcastically retorts “We just get on a plane and hope it works?”, which of course implies he is willing to get on the plane. When Jack is taken to the Principle Hawkings office, she gives him the suicide note, and tells him he needs to re-create the conditions of the 815 flight, and use Jack as a proxy for his father. At this, Jack objects, which to me, shows a parallel with the Saint Thomas story. Thomas the Apostle believed so much that he was willing to travel to Judea with Jesus, even if it meant his death, but after the resurrection, he didn’t quite believe in the resurrection without proof. In the same way, Jack believes so much that he is willing to partner with Ben to get everyone together, and get them on a plane which will crash, possibly causing their deaths, and the possible deaths of everyone else on the plane, but he isn’t willing to believe that he needs to put a pair of his dads shoes on Locke. Like Thomas, he believes but not to the point where he might look foolish. If a Jesus look-alike walked in to church, I doubt even the most faithful would accept him as authentic without proof. Jack is told he has to take another leap of faith, at which point we cut to Ben, possibly saying a quick prayer and lighting a candle for Alex before he makes his excuses and has to go tie up some loose ends. The afforementioned act made me conclude he was going to take care of Penny as revenge for Alex’s death. That might put a crimp in my Ben is a good guy argument, but as is often the case, when Ben has been made to be a monster, and punished accordingly, we are usually shown he has not been the monster we thought he was.

Was it me, or did this episode have a lot of blue (moon) lighting from the side of the actors? Principle Hawkings office had blue light, and then Jacks apartment had blue light. It just seemed a little heavy handed and I wondered whether it was another case of the writers being heavy handed with themes again. Like most people I was annoyed by the Kate scene. Aaron disappears, Kate turns up at Jacks apartment agreeing to go back to the Island after one more last night in the Jack Sack, threatening that if he wants her to go to the Island, Jack can’t ever ask where his nephew is.Usually this isn’t a problem since our losties have spent 5 seasons not asking the most obvious of questions. However, my thoughts are, did Claires mum call the Attorney and start asking who Aaron was and then confront Kate about it? Was Aaron taken away legally, and the ultimatum was that either Aaron or Kate goes back to the Island on the flight? The kicker being that Aaron is tucked away at the back of the plane unbeknownst to Kate?

When we get to Jacks Grandpappy, I was sure he was going to invite him along for the ride, and was almost disappointed when he didn’t (or did he?) Grandpappy Shepherd would have been a good proxy for a father for Jack. Also one key thing to note is that he commented on Kate “The one with the freckles”. A lot of people are wondering whether Kate’s freckles are appearing and disappearing based on events (like the picture frames in the Miles house call) and like the items in the hatch. For those keeping count, it would seem that in the real world, Kate has her freckles back. I’m sure we’ll be seeing the guy at the front of the check-in line offer Jack condolences, and sitting with our losties again. It’ll be interesting to see who is behind him, if anyone.

So, to wrap up, they get on a plane, and are apparently sucked out of the plane over the Island. This raises another issue. Jack ‘landed’ in the middle of the jungle, a la the pilot episode. This again raises the question of how Jack landed in the jungle since falling out of the sky usually has harsh consequences no matter how spongy that Hawaian grass appears. Here we know he might have been plucked out of the air to return to the Island. However, what about the pilot episode? How did he get there? Was he plucked out of the air that time too because the Island was looking for him (and possibly others). Of course, the plane crashed, but it wasn’t meant to, but it does seem like it was meant to fly near/over the island as it was in the vicinity. Perhaps Jack and others were meant to go to the Island, and thanks to Desmond, the plane was accidentally brought down.

I’m starting to believe that this whole story arc is about Jack, and not Locke. Jack usually is on the wrong side of things, most decisions he makes are wrong, what he believes is often wrong, just look at the denial when the island disappeared only to later decide that they need to lie. He’s hit rock bottom, and now he is a believer. He’s coming back to the Island as a believer and ready to do whatever it takes. Locke on the other hand seems to still be getting the bait and switch and being a useful tool as people pander to his need to be special while getting things from him. Yeah, sure John, you’re special, now give me that kidney, or go sacrifice yourself for the island, because without that sacrifice, we can’t get Jack back again, and this time we feel like he’s going to get it right. Let’s look at his conversation with Kate, he is fully bought into it, he has seen the resurrection with his own eyes and is no longer the doubting Thomas. Kate, still grounded in reality, still thinks nothing of the fact that they are all on the same plane and going back to the Island, and why not, all they had to do was buy a ticket. Perhaps Jack has seen and understands the Herculean effort that it took to get them there all on the same flight which makes him such a believer, and since Ben is probably the most responsible for it, highlights how under appreciated he is for making the miracles happen.

Heading back to the start of the episode with waking up on the Island, I definitely thought it was a fake out, and Jack would wake up in the real world, sweaty and disappointed. Shame on me for not having faith. However, it is what makes the show so cool and in that theme, we should start out another episode with the losties claiming “So that’s what smokey is and why those numbers are used, wow, I never thought that is how Claire would end up, and who would believe the reasoning behind all the strange ‘coincidences’ between us all weren’t really coincidences”. It would then switch back to “present day”, and then not be addresses till the very final episode over a year from now.

Ah, this is probably one of the best shows ever, even better than Twin Peaks season 1, and for the same reasons. I just hope they keep raising as many questions as they answer right until the last episode of the series.